Explore Quotes by Benjamin Franklin

We must hang together, gentlemen...else, we shall most assuredly hang separately.

As charms are nonsense,_x000D_nonsense is a charm.

Sin is not hurtful because it is forbidden,_x000D_but it is forbidden because it is hurtful.

Duty is not beneficial because it is commanded,_x000D_but is commanded because it is beneficial.

They who have nothing to trouble them,_x000D_will be troubled at nothing.

He that is rich need not live sparingly,_x000D_and he that can live sparingly need not be rich.

The poor man must walk to get meat for his stomach,_x000D_the rich man to get a stomach to his meat.

Resolve to perform what you ought;_x000D_perform without fail what you resolve.

Thou can'st not joke an enemy into a friend,_x000D_but thou may'st a friend into an enemy.

I think with you, that nothing is of more importance for the public weal, than to form and train up youth in wisdom and virtue. Wise and good men are in my opinion, the strength of the state; more so than riches or arms.

He [the Rev. Mr. Whitefield] used, indeed, sometimes to pray for my conversion, but never had the satisfaction of believing that his prayers were heard.

The refusal of King George to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from clutches of the money manipulators was probably the prime cause of the revolution.

I have so much faith in the general government of the world by Providence that I can hardly conceive a transaction of such momentous importance [as the framing of the Constitution] ... should be suffered to pass without being in some degree influenced, guided, and governed by that omnipotent, omnipresent, and beneficent Ruler in whom all inferior spirits live and move and have their being.

Think What You Do When You Run in Debt: You Give to Another Power over Your Liberty

Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy.

Mankind are very odd creatures:_x000D_one half censure what they practice,_x000D_the other half practice what they censure;_x000D_the rest always say and do as they ought.

Many a long dispute among divines may be thus abridged: It is so; It is not so. It is so; it is not so.

As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting Changes; and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity.

I am on this account not displeased that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America... He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.

Better is little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure, and trouble therewith.

Watch the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves.